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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24234832">Walk ahead and don't wait for me, I'll follow your footsteps anyway.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulhead/pseuds/soulhead'>soulhead</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Formula 1 RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Self-Acceptance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:20:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,033</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24234832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulhead/pseuds/soulhead</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't allow this annoying, emotional and demanding part of him to distract him as it seeks a kind of companionship his racing lifestyle cannot provide. This force of his own that moves for and against his own wellness at time, that bites and scratches when he swallow yet another suppressant : it needs to be muzzled and he's never second-guessed his decision on the topic until very recently.</p><p>Or, Daniel is an Alpha on suppressants, but Lewis just wishes he would be himself for once.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lewis Hamilton/Daniel Ricciardo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>63</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Walk ahead and don't wait for me, I'll follow your footsteps anyway.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Lewis never looks as enticing as he does when he lays on his bed, still covered in a fine sheen of champagne after a podium and yet, looking expectantly at Daniel as if he's still waiting for his prize to be presented to him.</p><p>Granted, the Mercedes driver is always a sight to behold, but in those intimate moments between the two of them, he just shines differently, almost blindingly so.</p><p>«What are you thinking about ?» Lewis asks as he crawls up to him, a devilish smile barely hidden on his lips.</p><p>«Ah. Nothing that interesting anymore.» he swallows thickly, his heart running a riot in his ribcage. A shaky exhales escapes his mouth when Lewis straddles him and traces the outlines of Daniel's upper arm tattoo. They remain silent, both knowing exactly what will follow between the two of them but neither in a particular hurry for it to all unfold. They have all the time in the world on this evening.</p><p>Lewis hands slowly moves on to explore his chest, his caresses featherlight but still making goosebumps appears on its trail. It shouldn't be normal to feel this brittle under Lewis full scrutiny, he ponders. He's the Alpha, the one genetically granted with the more height and muscles between the two of them and yet.... Even months into their shared nights, whenever he's allowed to witness the sight of Lewis getting acquainted to his body for the hundredth time, he can't help but feel at the mercy of the Omega.</p><p>And so, Daniel's eyes closes themselves to allow himself to sink into the feeling of the secure hold Lewis' two legs have around his waist and the arousing weight he's applying on his pelvis as he sits on top of him.</p><p>«Oh, so you're just going to close your eyes and let me do all the work ?» Lewis remarks disapprovingly.</p><p>«Yup, you got your podium, I didn't. You putting the work for once is my consolation price.»</p><p>«For on-mmph» he begins undignified, before Daniel swallows the end of Lewis sentence by pressing his lips on his.</p><p>To hell with slow he thinks as Lewis lets a small whine when their kiss starts to grow more heated.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>The following morning Daniel wakes up fully rested, any aches linked to a full weekend of racing absent. Beside him, he can feel Lewis letting out steady breath and resting his weight against his back.</p><p>Feeling thirsty, he decides to quit the comforting warmth Lewis generates to go to the bathroom. After a few sips of the tap water and once his teeth are brushed, he opens the mirror's cabinet to take a medicine tablet and swallow the same pill he's taken every morning since the last 10 years.</p><p>It's only when he close the cabinet's door that the reflection of Lewis appears in his eyesight and it startles him. Daniel's heart picks up at the sight at the expression Lewis wears. He looks at him with an unreadable and cold expression on his face, a far cry from the contentment that Lewis exulted a few hours ago.</p><p>«Oh, jeez you scared me there ! » he tries to joke conversationally.</p><p>Lewis doesn't say anything, instead he stares him down with a frown evident on his face before entering the shower. Daniel is only confused for a second by the Omega's distant attitude before his eyes go back to the drug tablet he's still holding in his left hand. With a sigh, he says goodbye to the carefreeness that characterized their night together.</p><p>He's heard enough of Lewis media declaration against the medicine, about the need for people with a secondary gender to follow in his footsteps and to embrace their instincts instead of «swallowing poison everyday» as he calls it. Even before the recent start of their relationship – or whatever their nightly arrangement can be called - he's been directly on the receiving hand of those monologues more times than he'd like to.</p><p>Water droplets starts hitting the shower's floor and even through he usually can't resist the idea of spending dozens of minutes under the warm water while lazily making out with Lewis, he hastily decide to make his exit. He finds refuge on the balcony of his hotel room.</p><p>As he opens the door, fresh air hits him and he sits heavily on the outdoor bench. His eyes remains unfocused on the rising sun in front of him. Minutes pass, where he tries to let the warmth of the sun into his skin and to shift his focus away from the burn that Lewis reproachful gaze left him to deal with.</p><p>It's useless though and he can't avoid the insidious discomfort that slowly creeps into him. Lewis always make going off suppressants seems so easy, so worth it. Whenever journalists asks him, he starts talking in a a language that Daniel cannot understand : he describes how everything fell into place for him, how enlightened and freed he became once he's stopped tampering his body with the drug.</p><p>Yet, all Daniel remembers of the weeks he spent without suppressant just after he presented was his own skin feeling like it was trying to crawl out of him and feeling on the verge of puking his guts at any smell. Once he started taking suppressants, he never looked back. Until a few months ago, that is.</p><p>The truth is, it's too tempting to carry on like this indefinitely. His entire career in F1 still hold itself together because he's never allowed himself to cross certain types of limits. There's the track limits he cannot cross without getting a penalty during a race of course, but there's also countless of other boundaries he must respect on a daily basis. Limits to how many calories he can ingest on a night out or how many hours of sleep he can squeeze in on a race week-end. There's even more insidious ones like the precise amount of jokes and light-hearted answers he's allowed to give in interviews before the journalists start thinking he isn't committed enough to the sport. Those are all limits defined by his line of work and with which he can deal just fine.</p><p>And that's precisely where suppressants come into play. His own instinct, the one thing he must rely on while driving, must have limits build upon it too. More accurately, it's every part of his instinct that are relied to his Alpha status that he has tried to construct boundaries around.</p><p>He can't allow this annoying, emotional and demanding part of him to distract him as it seeks a kind of companionship his racing lifestyle cannot provide. This force of his own that moves for and against his own wellness at time, that bites and scratches when he swallow yet another suppressant : it needs to be muzzled and he's never second-guessed his decision on the topic until very recently.</p><p>The thing is, he didn't even really meant for it to happen. He's from the same generation as Lewis and in today's world, the Mercedes driver is only one of the countless voices raising to encourage Alphas and Omegas to embrace their genetic heritage. He's almost sure that if he lived in another universe, one where he wasn't a racing driver, he would have stopped taking suppressants a long time ago. But in this reality, it seemed there was no right time at all to do it.</p><p>Adjusting to his new senses and the changes in his body would have taken him months and it was just never the right time for it. What was he supposed to do, jeopardize his career because he's gone off his suppressants weeks after finally being transferred to Toro Rosso as a rookie ? Risking a demotion from Red Bull because he had a minor dip of concentration after going off of them ?</p><p>He's suddenly distracted from his brooding when he sees from the corner of his eyes Lewis standing against the door's threshold, changed back into his clothes of yesterday. Daniel doesn't shift his attention on him, instead focusing on the horizon, waiting for him to speak.</p><p>«I'm sorry for earlier, I just...It makes me so angry to see you still take them when I know you would feel so much better without them.» the Omega explains softly, looking at him.</p><p>«I- Please Lewis, can't we just move on ?» Daniel sighs while rubbing his hand over his forehead in frustration.</p><p>Unsettled and clearly wanting to say more, Lewis purses his lips.</p><p>«Alright, I think I'm going to head out, see you on track.» are the final words he utters in a disappointed tone before leaving Daniel on his own, drowning in a sense of unease.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>The thing is this episode doesn't put a damper on whatever they have between the two of them. It already happened in the past and Daniel knows that time after time, they will fall back into the same bed.</p><p>And yet even during the winter break when Lewis and he only exchanges texts and brief phone-calls, every morning he swallows the same pill with a growing sense of uneasiness each time. It's as if he can almost see his rival's gaze bore into him reproachfully even when his rival is a whole continent away of him.</p><p>Despite all of that for a time, Daniel believe he's still in control. Lewis and he have a relationship whose true nature still escape him and they have different opinion. It's normal. Lewis is vegan, he isn't. He prefers long afternoon spent by the beach side, his rival discovered himself a passion for snowboarding last winter. He takes suppressants, when Lewis lives his life as an Omega as fully as he wants. That's all there is to it, nothing more.</p><p>In his line of work he cannot allow himself to lose face just because of people disagreeing with the way he lives.</p><p>And yet, the semblance of control and calm he's been trying to maintain crumbles as soon as the season start for a week of testing in Barcelona.</p><p>It unfolds in the most inconspicuous way really, when his guard is down. He's there, poorly hidden behind a pile of tires in a deserted part of the paddock and putting his headphone on. It's a ritual of his he has to follow dutifully before he fully throws himself into the constant franticness of the circus of the paddock.</p><p>When he has chosen a song to blast as loud as he can in his headphone, he just has to close his eyes and focus all his energy in imagining himself walk up on stage in front of a packed avenue. And for the duration of the song, he isn't feeling any pressure weighting him down. The avatar he's created in his mind monopolizing every bits of his attention as he sings every line and brings every riffs to life in front of a crowd that only exist in his head.</p><p>Usually, when the final beats of the music fade out in his headphone, he reopens his eyes and knows it's his cue to get back into real life and to get the show on, this time on the track.</p><p>But today, he can't enter into this small familiar headspace of his. Instead of seeing thousands of adorning fans surrounding his singing alter-ego, he can only look at his own feet against the asphalt of the circuit.</p><p>Truth to be told, it's been more and more difficult for him recently to empty his mind. His head is always thinking, his chest aching uncomfortably for reasons he can't (or won't) explain.</p><p>Frustrated for failing once again to follow this simple ritual, he decides to settle instead for an aimless walk around the paddock.</p><p>With each steps, his feet hit heavily the ground and soon enough, he comes across the Ferrari motorhome. Around him, mechanics are scurrying in all directions, talking rapidly in italian to one another. For a moment, he observes them, the sounds of his parents tongue reminding briefly of the time he spent in Italy when he was younger.</p><p>Then, his eyes fall upon Sebastian. He's talking animatedly to someone hidden from Daniel's point of view. A flash of a white appears in his eyesight and even room afar, he can almost make out the familiar white race suit of the person talking to Sebastian.</p><p>And sure enough, with one one more step, Lewis appears in his eyesight. There, doing nothing much extraordinary as he is engrossed in a friendly discussion with the Ferrari driver. He still manage to look breathtaking through, the smile Lewis wears lightening is entire face.</p><p>Yet, Daniel doesn't miss the way his own heart plummets at the sight and he rapidly picks up his pace to go further into the paddock.</p><p>It hits him suddenly, what this strange queasiness he's felt increasingly over the last few weeks is. It's not guilt or shame over taking suppressants, of being unable to fit Lewis expectation of him. No, it's not any of those feelings.</p><p>It's loneliness.</p><p> </p><p>And the weight of this feeling suddenly feels like it could drown him.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>The night before the last day of testing and after days of trying to avoid Lewis, the Omega somehow manages to get rid of an entire week of effort with a simple bat of his eyelashes in his direction. Daniel isn't really proud of himself, but his rival looked so hesitant and upset when he asked if he had tried to avoid him that he couldn't say no to his invitation. And before he knows it, he is sitting in a small and cozy private booth with Lewis looking at him expectantly as Daniel tries on the vegan menu he got dragged into ordering.</p><p>«So ?» Lewis pushes for his opinion.</p><p>«Hum...It's...» he says, pretending to be searching for his word «It's definitely better than the lasagna you tried to cook me once, I guess ?»</p><p>«Hey ! I make a mean lasagna ! It's not my fault I had the most incompetent sous-chef on that evening !» the Omega respond indignantly as Daniel starts laughing openly at the memory.</p><p>They spent the rest of their meal talking easily and it's a breath of fresh air for Daniel, whose heart hasn't stopped feeling heavy in his chest for days.</p><p>When their meal is finished, they quickly agree to go back to Lewis hotel, the atmosphere between the two of them having slowly shifted into a familiar tension between the two of them.</p><p>Once in the privacy of Lewis room, the rest of night goes by in flashes of lips whispering hotly his name, teeth marring his skin with delightful burn and a type of contentment he missed too much fills his lungs rapidly.</p><p>Lost into each other, they rapidly reach to completion and soon enough Daniel is left breathless under the sheets while Lewis walks to the bathroom to clean himself.</p><p>«I wish I could be like you...» he mutters, almost absentmindedly.</p><p>«Uhm ?» Lewis says as he comes back from the bathroom, handing a flannel to Daniel before letting himself fall unceremoniously on Daniel's chest. He doesn't speak outloud for a few minutes, trying to find the right words to express himself.</p><p>«I think...It's not just being overwhelmed by heightened senses that frightens me if I stop taking suppressants...I've never really been an Alpha you know ? I took my first suppressant just 3 weeks after presenting..» <em>I'm afraid to find out who I'll become or who I've always been</em>, he left unsaid.</p><p>The man in his arm remains silent, only tightening his hold around Daniel in a silent encouragement. It's almost as if Lewis already knew. He probably did, Daniel realizes. </p><p>«You know...» Lewis begins slowly, his voice already hoarse with sleep «-for someone whose motto is “ Stop being them”, it's awfully ironic how you can't even accept yourself.» he concludes softly, as if he just didn't delivered the final blow to Daniel. As if he just didn't voice out something Daniel can barely admits to himself.</p><p>His own breath hitches and he stays silent for a moment, unable to say anything back to defend himself.</p><p>Long after Lewis breath has finally evened out, Daniel's remains awake starring out at the ceiling, pretending to not notice how is eyes are slowly welling up.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>Lewis words don't stop ringing in his mind for a very long time. They resonate so loudly in his head that he navigates the next weeks in a daze, almost as if all he lived through was an out of body experience.</p><p>And when the first Grand-Prix of the 2020 season doesn't happen at all, when the whole word shuts down in fear of a virus they know to little about, Daniel tries as best as he can to power through.</p><p>He doesn't voice his frustration to his trainer when he starts losing his motivation to train every day of the week when he doesn't even know if they'll race at all this year. He regulates his intake of news about the virus to maintain his own sanity, he doesn't allow himself to become too inactive. Instead, whenever he feels on the verge of being too bored, too restless, he posts stupid challenges on Instagram, telling his subscribers to try to better themselves during the lockdown. He encourages them to become unstuck, echoing the slogan he painted on his helmet for this new season.</p><p>And then, one morning on the fourth week of the world pandemic, he stares and stares for dozens of minutes at the box of suppressants laying in his bathroom closet. He thinks back once again to what he said and didn't say to Lewis during that night in Barcelona. Determined, he hastily throws the medicine into the bin.</p><p>It's true, he doesn't know how his body will react without suppressant, if he'll be able to grow accustomed to the constant overwhelming precision of his senses. He doesn't even know how long the quarantine will last, if he will have enough time to settle into his own changing body before the F1 championship gets back on track.</p><p>But he knows one thing :</p><p> </p><p>Next time he'll meet Lewis, he'll be true to himself.</p>
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